I couldn't give a **** about Adebayor, but was glad to see us spank the spuds 5-2. The point I was making though was that when we don't play well and don't win, it's suddenly crisis time. But when we don't play well and do win, the pundits describe it as 'the stuff of champions'. I don't think either are particularly accurate descriptions to be honest.
I'm not sure I get your point, or what the "Stuff of champions" is. If you are saying that the "Stuff of champions" is like the Man City game against QPR on the last day of last season, then I would say our Spurs victory was better than that. Chelsea won the CL last year, and I'm not sure I saw a game in the CL knock-out rounds where I thought they out-classed their opponents, or displayed the "Stuff of Champions". Really having a hard time resisting mocking the whole "Stuff of Champions" thing.
It was in response to PISKIE claiming beating QPR 1-0 was the "stuff of champions." My point is, Arsenal aren't playing well and are barely winning. They were fortunate against Spurs, beat a poor, struggling QPR side unconvincingly & an already defeated Montpellier side. Fulham, Villa, & 2 Schalke games have all been poor performances & bad results. I'm hoping for a better performance against Everton, but I'm not optimistic.
and my use of the term was to highlight it's extreme connotations. The same as beating QPR and not playing well wasn't the stuff of champions, drawing with Villa and not playing well isn't a crisis.
I'm not saying it's a crisis. It's a bad patch at the moment. With Gibbs back, and hopefully Rosicky soon to help Cazorla a little things may get better. However, they're definitely in a bad patch at the moment.
Yeah, I'm not saying you were calling it a crisis fella Just that it's how the pundits like to swing from one extreme to another. I do agree though that we're going through a bit of a tough patch, I think we've got it within us to turn it around. We're not far off winning most of the games we play. But for me we really need to press the MF more. We're not creating much in there and we're not closing it down when we don't have the ball. I think Wilshere will make a big difference against Everton.
Blue here!! I'm glad we should have our best back 4 for the match plus Fellaini and maybe Mirallas I think this could be real close but as I dont like sitting on the fence Im going for a 2-1 win for us...One thing for sure we are struggling to keep clean sheets so I have a feeling we will need to out score you!!!
Hopefully we'll have Wilshere, Walcott and Sagna back, so I'm expecting a much better performance than the Villa game. Should be a close run contest. I'm going for a classic 0-1 to the Arsenal
I wouldn't be optimistic if I were you. You seem to have utter contempt for every team we play against and are not satisfied by just a win, you expect total domination. In fact, going by the QPR game where we had 70% of the posession and out-shot them 21-4, total domination isn't really good enough either. It really is the root of the problem with Arsenal fans, there is this mythical "standard" presumably set by the invincibles, in one of their most convincing victories, and anything short of that is unacceptable. I have respect for Everton. They are a decent team and they will give us a good game. If we out-possess them and out-shoot them then hopefully we will win, but I don't expect we will have a "convincing" victory, based on what I understand of your definition, which seems to mean wiping the floor with them.
I see. I identify that Arsenal are in a slump, and explain their recent poor run of form, and because of this I expect "total domination?" Brilliant. I didn't follow Arsenal during the Invincibles, so that's that out the water. I'd like Arsenal to beat Everton. More than that, I'd like a good team performance, good tactical awareness to counteract Evertons threats, rather than just set up with the team we can all predict, to play the way we can all guess. To beat Arsenal, you mark Cazorla & Theo out of the game, and deny Giroud aerial balls. It's simple. Teams have figured it out, and the lack of tactical variation & squad depth will continue to cost points through the season.
If we lose on Wednesday i'll know who to blame. Bonstar the Jonah Did you manage to find out about an away pub ?
Not feeling confident about this game. But i said the same about the Liverpool and Spurs games, and they turned out alright.
I'm more confident of us beating you guys on Wednesday than I was beating Norwich on Saturday. We struggle to break the lower placed teams down and therefore have all possession with little end product. Arsenal ate hardly going to sit back so the open the game is the more it will benefit us especially if Mirallas makes it to stretch the wings (Naismith, Pienaar and Oviedo play inside too much) and take on defenders. Possession will be interesting, think the only time we've been out possessed this year was against United.
Do you have a point or are you just stringing football buzzwords together? Are they not going to mark Gibbs, Sagna or Podolski? What about Arteta? Might not want to give him too much room? How about Wilshere? Do you think they should just let him go running around without watching him? Actually, we are facing the same two banks of 4 parking the bus, we have always had problems with. Nobody is marking anyone, it is a straightforward 8 man zone. You can play any damn formation or tactics you like and it isn't going to mean diddlysquat. You're still going to hit 8 men lined up in two banks of 4 on the edge of the area, and you are going to have your front 6 or 8 trying to work holes in those lines. And yes, shock horror, we are going to drop more points before the end of the season.
I've made several points so far. Re-read my posts if you'd like more information. You wouldn't mark a full-back out of the game. If you deny Giroud aerial balls, the major thing you have to watch out for from the full-backs is the Podolski / Gibbs relationship along the ground. He's been playing a very withdrawn DM-esque role this season, he's not been very creative at all, so he's not worth worrying about at present. Cazorla is presently more creative than Wilshere, so I'd preferentially be concerned with him. This could free up more space for Jack, but you can't mark everyone. You try to nullify the biggest threats, and in midfield that's Cazorla. I have no doubt they'll set up this way if Arsenal are playing the pass-pass-pass around the edge of the box game. If they reach this situation, they've done well and they should be fairly solid at the back. It's hard to work gaps in a packed defense. However, if Arsenal try and do things faster, Everton will need to track the runners from midfield, and that's when it becomes important to watch Theo & Cazorla, as if Theo gets in behind on the diagonal he's dangerous, and Cazorla has fantastic movement. It's even more important at present with Giroud playing so well, as if he gets a couple of aerial knock-downs with Theo & Cazorla running on, Arsenal could get a couple easily. I am fully aware of that. I think I've given justification to my reasons I believe Arsenal are highly predictable. The main reason is because the personnel & formation doesn't vary much at all. This may be to do with squad depth, the injuries to Diaby & Rosicky give little adaptability in midfield & the lack of competition up front with Oxo off form & Chamakh and Arshavin out of favour means you can predict the lineup with great accuracy and thus set up to counteract it.
Even more reason why we need Theo back for this game. We need to stretch Everton's defence, because they will be more than happy to see us play our football outside of their box and sit back and defend. We need some penetration and Walcott is the man to give us that
Absolutely! So far Arsenal have looked FAR more dangerous with Theo on the field He's scoring and playing well - he got 11 goals last season in 41+5, this season he already has 9 in 6+9!! The boy is on fire Update: Wenger just said in his Press Conference that he's back in the Squad.
we won't sit back and defend mate, we will take the game to you like we have all season home and away.
